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Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#4210 gigabit ethernet to the home over singlemode fiber, with the extreme challenge that it needs to have a reasonable ROI for the ISP, fast build process, and reasonable per unit passed costs. And five nines uptime goal over 1 year of statistical measurement.
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#43Four years out of college: Some combination of working at Google, Facebook, $BIGBANK, or going to law/med school. The smartest all jumped on career ladders because of the head start from their degrees and grades. The non-technical went to banks because what other profession pays $100k a year for a liberal arts degree? The technical went to the most recognizable companies that would take them and pay them a lot of mon…
> some left their corporate job and are mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs "mindlessly"? What are they missing? I'm curious, because this is a path that has always appealed to me, but that I didn't take in my twenties or early thirties. I hope to be in a position to be able to do it in my late thirties, but am not committed to the idea.
To be clear, I don’t mean to apply that sentiment to every ex-BigCo entrepreneur. Of course many are successful.
However, in my experience the skillset that makes a good $BigCo employee is often distinct from, or even mutually incompatible with, the skillset that makes a good entrepreneur.
Since ex-BigCo employees are likely to get funding even with very little traction (because VCs like to invest in ex-BigCo teams), those entrepreneurs are more likely to found a business that is well-funded but fundamentally doomed to fail. The founders want to feel like they’re running a business, and they go through the motions of it, despite little substance or strategy behind the product. I believe Paul Graham calls it “playing house.”
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#44Four years out of college: Some combination of working at Google, Facebook, $BIGBANK, or going to law/med school. The smartest all jumped on career ladders because of the head start from their degrees and grades. The non-technical went to banks because what other profession pays $100k a year for a liberal arts degree? The technical went to the most recognizable companies that would take them and pay them a lot of mon…
> some left their corporate job and are mindlessly trying to be entrepreneurs "mindlessly"? What are they missing? I'm curious, because this is a path that has always appealed to me, but that I didn't take in my twenties or early thirties. I hope to be in a position to be able to do it in my late thirties, but am not committed to the idea.
This resonated with me because I was a corporate drone that left to "mindlessly" become an entrepreneur. More charitably, I believe it's being in love with the idea of being an entrepreneur but pursuing that path based on pop-culture information (think Entrepreneur magazine articles) and less on direct experience.
Nonetheless, even though my business ultimately failed, I thank my lucky stars I'm not working in the cube farm anymore. On to business #2!
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#45quant finance :/
HFT microwave network architecture and engineering
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#46Natural language processing and how it can be used to research health/well-being
Getting people to click on ads
Biochemistry MD/PhDs
Geologist for a lithium mining company
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#47R&D of applying cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to real world problems.
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#48Getting people to click on advertisements.
>Getting people to click on advertisements. Came here to post the same, as I take a break from getting people to click on advertisements, at a job that pays way too much money to even consider anything else. It's pretty damn depressing that the brightest minds of our generation have been sucked up by these companies that really do nothing but further meaningless consumerism. When people ask what I do, I say I work at…
> at a job that pays way too much money to even consider anything else.
I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere, and I don't understand it. While I can't speak for others, there are many jobs I probably wouldn't take regardless of how much they paid. These jobs often harm society or are bad for other reasons (lack of autonomy, burnout, etc.).
Most jobs I'm qualified for pay me enough that I'm happy. Once I reach that point, I'm optimizing other axes.
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#49Nothing.
He's living amongst the forests, homeschooling his children, after indulging and destroying himself with consumerism, alcohol and drugs.
Re: Ask HN: What are the smartest people you know working on?
#50Computer vision and robotics (with Agricultural Science applications), RF communications, and one person who works in games development because it affords him his work on a C++ committee sub-group. Outside of technology, an economist for the DoJ and a lawyer who works in non-profits (not sure where she is right now / what sort of work).